Cheapest Printer To Run Is `greenest'

The Age

Monday July 5, 1993

The ``greener" the laser printer, the cheaper it is to run, according to a report commissioned by Kyocera Electronics Australia. Users who buy a conventional laser printer for around $5000, can expect its total cost to escalate to nearly $20,000 over an average four-year life span.

``Consumables" like toner, print drum and developer are the inflation culprits, accounting for around 62 per cent of the overall cost. The initial purchase price makes up only 24 per cent of a printer's worth, while on-site service adds 8.4 per cent, paper four per cent and power 1.3 per cent to the lifetime cost.

The report, carried out by the Sydney-based International Research Bureau, studied 360 laser printers sold in Australia and featured Kyocera's Ecosys 1500 as the best and ``greenest" buy at $10,259, over four years. This compared with the running costs of four top sellers in the high-volume, eight to 10 page-per-minute market: the Lexmark 10R at $14,332; the HP LaserJet 4M at $16,515; the Apple Pro 600 at $16,927; and the Canon LBP-IV at $16,958.

Printers in the high performance 11 to 20 page-per-minute market showed bigger savings. These units typically process 10,000 pages a month. The Kyocera 3500 satisfied scrutiny, again, costing $15,894 over four years, followed by the Lexmark 16L on $28,566, the Hewlett- Packard LaserJet 4SI on $32,306 and the Compaq 20 on $34,235.

Unique to Kyocera among these green beauties was its patented ``amorphous silicon drum", which did not need replacing under normal use, according to Kyocera officials. Users simply had to top up the toner. The print cost per page worked out cheaper at around 1.3 cents per page compared with competitive offerings that used disposable cartridges and cost between 3.7 cents and 5.7 cents a page.

The IRB report gave ratings based on environmentally sound features such as reduced power settings, recyclable packaging, support for recycled paper and toner cartridge replacement. Compaq models scored ratings out of 100 from 14 points and up, with Apple on 28, Canon on 29, Hewlett-Packard's ranging from 29 to 41 and Lexmark on 41. Kyocera scored 100.